Getting most out of EntreCard network
If someone doesn’t know - EntreCard is a social network for bloggers that supposed to help building traffic to your blog.
The way it works - you “drop” your card into the EntreCard widget on any site you see it (look in the dark sidebar to the right on my blog) and get credit for it. The owner of the site where you dropped card will also get credit for it and your banner will appear on his EntreCard member dashboard. He may return the favor and visit your site.
After you generate some credits (you also have an option to purchase credits directly from EntreCard) you can use it to buy one-day banner ad on the website of your choice. The prices for these ads are determined by how many people are paid and waiting for theirs turn to display the banner. Also every website owner have an option to decline any ads.
Ideally this system should work and if used properly could generate quality targeted traffic. The problem is - not every one understands meaning of Targeted Quality Traffic…
As usual some webmasters are trying to capitalize on popularity of a new program and generate extra traffic to their site with initiatives like “power dropper” and such… In the same time they destroy the whole point of targeted exchange. What they do is provide pre-coded list of EntreCard users which opens up 10 browser windows so user can drop cards quickly. Do you want this kind of traffic? I don’t! Even more - if I was EntreCard owner I would ban these “power drop” inventors form the program instantly!
I would like to see visitors who is actually interested in my site and would not leave as soon as he finds the widget to drop his card. All they do is bringing down value of my site by increasing bounce rate. More and more experienced bloggers who has tried EntreCard program at some point removed are removing widgets from theirs sites.
Another thing that I don’t understand is how some users are creating advertising banners… Placing some photo or cute image on it doesn’t do you any good. When I look on the banner ad - I want to know what the website is about. Insert relevant images or logo with brief description so I can get an idea if I am interested in your site. Otherwise you just wasting my time and even if I go to your site - I will not read your posts, I will not click your ads, and for sure I will never come back… Is that the type of visitors you really want?
Bad banner ad can also cost you potential visitors if you decided to use credits for advertisement on someone else’s site. Same thing - people want to know what’s behind the banner before clicking on it. Misleading ads with beautiful girls for example may catch someones attention and get you a click but not the targeted visitor…
These are two main problems that I see with the way people are using EntreCard program. Do yourself a favor - take care of your ad and stay away from all these artificial traffic exchanges for the sake of gaining credits. Otherwise you will just damage your own reputation and help to destroy potentially good traffic source.
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Tags: EntreCard, Marketing, Website Promotion, Widgets
Although, sometimes I go for the…
July 18th, 2008 at 1:53 am
Getting most out of EntreCard network…
Most common mistakes of EntreCard users. What to do and what not to do for gaining quality targeted traffic out of Entrecard network. Why power dropper inventors should be banned for life!…
July 18th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Good read.
Power Dropping has been banned now, it came into effect I think a week ago. If you find any, report them.
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July 18th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Though EC does bring a lot of traffic but it doesn’t stay as much as you have expected it to. The way I look at it, the power users are only interested in earning those credits than discovering new blogs so it kind of defeat the very purpose EC is for.
But it stills brings traffic to you as a whole. Interesting read with some really good points.
Yan
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July 23rd, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Using entrecard to surf is ok, but not ok if you just bounce in and out of the same old sites on a daily basis that do not interest you at all. If you like the site, leave a comment on a posting, interact with the blogger. Dropping a card on the sites that you will be reading off and on is fine. It at least lets the blogger know that you are at least interested enough in their site to stop and read a few posts. Good luck with your blog and nice post.
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July 27th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Now entrecard traffic become useful as it teamed up with SEZWHO. Now a days I am getting low bumping rate and also getting more comments. Hope you’ll also get the same result.
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July 28th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
This is awesome information. While I’ve got entrecard setup, I don’t necessarily think I get some good traffic from it, and that’s probably because of my advertisement. I think if it were just an affiliate program, it would do much better. Nice post.
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July 28th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
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July 29th, 2008 at 1:03 am
I completely agree with your complaints as far as the EntreCard system goes. I get extremely annoyed at irrelevant banners, or people dropping/attempting to purchase ad space on my blog with an irrelevant blog.
I do, however, appreciate the targeted traffic that I do sometimes get. I noticed a lot of the *true* EntreCard users (not aspiring power-droppers) are very friendly, tend to visit your blog and look around, and provide useful commentary.
Even if folks like that aren’t going to be making you any money because it is their goal to receive traffic back from you, they at least contributed to your blog by providing useful comments, increasing your traffic ranking, making your blog more *active*, and could actually provide you indirect traffic if they like your website enough to exchange links.
Great review on EntreCard, I’ll definitely stumble this one.
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July 30th, 2008 at 9:02 am
traffic from entrecard is not much useful on my blog … but still m having it on one of my auto blog
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July 30th, 2008 at 10:19 am
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September 14th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
some very nice observations. i can’t agree more on the power dropper thing. should be banned right away from entrecard IMHO….
Juns last blog post..SSRRN Cpanel Email Login
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October 8th, 2008 at 11:45 am
I used Entrecard now for a pretty long time and it’s been fairly good to me! I buy credits on e-bay which allows me to mass market my social networking website very well.
Overall as a blogger I’m not too sure I woudl use it unless you offered a service to bloggers!
bbrian017s last blog post..Death of Advertising a4 JAKE EDWARDS a4 KAPITEL
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